


it’s a cruel summer (without you)

by myillusionsgone



Series: said, "i'm fine," but it wasn't true [9]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Violence, canon divergent as in 'silver is not gray's father. never was his father. never will be his father', mentions of a canonical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-21 11:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22560433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myillusionsgone/pseuds/myillusionsgone
Summary: After so many years without her, one would think he has gotten used to it. One would be wrong. He has not and he is not sure if he ever wants to. — Silver
Relationships: Silver Fullbuster/Ur
Series: said, "i'm fine," but it wasn't true [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623238
Kudos: 3





	it’s a cruel summer (without you)

Out of all the demons in Tartarus, Silver had always been different. Strange, one might say. Unique, someone kinder would call it, but kindness was rare among them. He had been the first experiment to succeed, had been the first to willingly surrender humanity in exchange for a promise that had been neither kept nor broken. These days, after centuries of waiting, he no longer expected it to be kept, and almost, this was fine by him as it meant he no longer had reason to uphold his end of the bargain.

The part of Silver (and was the name Zeref had given him not flawless? Not as valuable as gold, often second choice) that still cared about what his maker thought wondered occasionally if the dark mage had ever considered the possibility of being tricked by someone he had tricked, first, or if he thought he had won and that there would be no price to pay for how he had won.

However, for the most part, Silver had more important things to worry about than what sort of line he should use when, inevitably, things would come to a head and he would demand payment for everything. He was preoccupied with his own projects . . . and other things. Keeping his daughter safe, somehow, which she made difficult ( _ so very difficult _ ) with the choices she made, with the company she kept, and trying to not think too much about how her mother was trying to kill him, her cold, lily-white fingers wrapped gently around his throat, rosy lips pressed against his ear and whispering how he had betrayed her.

He had coughed up flowers for years — petals, stained with blood caught in tissues and thrown away. Leaves, now and then as well, but mostly flowers. The first time another demon had seen it, there had been . . . panic, whispers of his imminent death, and he would have laughed if he had had the breath for it. Any human would be long dead, but he still drew breath because life would not show him mercy.

He would not die from this; neither his own stubbornness nor Zeref would permit it. It did not matter how often he would almost choke on blood and flowers, he was not allowed to leave until his work was done.

Sayla had asked, once — he had been throwing up myrtle petals and she had been fascinated by it, in her . . . infuriatingly detached way. She had wanted to know if the flowers had a meaning, aside from the obvious (that he loved and was not loved back, that his love was supposed to kill him yet could not quite finish the job), and he had laughed. Not at her, but at the idea he could know. In his life, he had learned many a language, but he had never had need to know what plants meant to tell him.

(Then, a new cough had shook him and he had spat out lavender — probably some sort of divine punishment.)

Rarely, very rarely, he hoped that Ur had not fallen sick like he had, that her airways had been unobstructed until the end, but she — his love, his  _ wife _ — had always been the unlucky sort, and he had surely been just another omen of misfortune for her. Her love had not, had never been unanswered, but he was too old to think that it was that easy.

Very early on, weeks before he had dared to call her his, she had spat out cornflowers during a conversation, had only blinked and shrugged before continuing to explain her spell, her hands moving almost faster as her mouth and her eyes gleaming with passion.

(Right then, he had known he was in trouble.)

People like her were walking tragedies, were doomed — to burn up in the blinding blaze of their own brilliance. They were rare, not just because of their qualities but also because they never lasted long. He had seen it play out before, had he not? He had known where this would go, long before she had grabbed his collar and kissed him. But — knowing had not kept him from tripping, from falling when she had looked at him with her soft smiles and sharp eyes. 

It had not stopped irises from growing in his lungs then, and it was not stopping an entire garden forcing its way out now. If he was human, he would be screwed. As a demon, it was painful (so very painful, sometimes) but bearable. Maybe a little bit troublesome when he was challenged during a fight, but that did not happen often, these days.

There were not many things he was grateful for, but his strength was one of them. It kept others away from him, especially those who had been around to witness the fate that had befallen the fool who had called him weak for being able to love. Zeref had not been pleased by the sudden vacancy within their ranks, but it meant Silver was given a wide berth, these days. 

In some ways, this was all he had ever wanted — space to follow his own objectives with no one looking over his shoulder, the ability to do whatever he wanted without anyone's comment — but it also gave him too much time to mull over his plans, to almost lose himself in dreams of finally righting the wrongs that had been done, to balance the scales properly once more. Dreams of vengeance were not rare for his kind, almost everyone had a score they would like to settle, but he had this almost human belief that it would make things better.

And who could fault him for it? He  _ had _ been human, hundreds of years ago, before Zeref had crafted him into what he was now — both monster and hunter. He was a monster that hunted down other monsters, monsters there were less in control of themselves than he was.

He should have known that this would not keep him safe when Fairy Tail was swept into his life. He could not remember a single fairytale were the hunter or the monster lived to see the last page; one might argue that some monsters were turned back into humans, but to do so, they had to be loved — and if the petals that he spat out alongside his own blood made one thing very clear, it was that he was alone in his love.

And this was nothing he could blame his wife for, could he? The dead found it hard to love the living.

But before she had died, she had loved, had loved fiercely if quietly. She had looked at this boy — scarred and angry — and seen something, just like she had looked at Silver, years before, and seen someone deserving of her time and love.

So what on earth was he doing, trying to kill the kid? How could he say he was doing this for her, trying to avenge her, when he was set on killing the boy she had died to save? How had this ever made sense? Too lost in his screaming thoughts, he — slipped. Not on ice, even though there was plenty of it around them, but down the rabbit hole in his own head. What was he doing? Ur had loved the boy, her student. She had given him her magic, had given her life to him and her other student, had sent them out into the world to live.

A life for a life, they said, but what happened if the lives were one and the same?

He saw the sword before it cut through his armour, could have dodged it, could have shattered it . . . but what for? He would not win this,  _ could not allow it _ . If he won, the boy would die. If he won, Ur would never forgive him. The dead might find it hard to love the living, but they could  _ easily _ bear grudges. And he would never want to give her another reason to hate him.

A part of him wanted to say something witty, if only to see the kid's face, but it was hard to talk and cough at the same time. Wiping away blood and the inevitable petals that had gotten caught in his beard, he was oddly satisfied to see the boy freeze for a second, something like pity or maybe understanding flash in his eyes before he hurled a lance at Silver, catching him in the chest and then, Silver saw only darkness darkness closing in as his mind clung to one thought —  _ didn't kill the kid, Ur. For you. _

She would argue with him, of course she would. Almost, he could hear her voice, insisting that by not killing her student for having gotten her killed, he had proven that he could rise above his anger, above his . . .  _ grief _ . Above the grief he had never quite allowed himself because he had left her and surely, he had lost the privilege of calling her  _ his _ that day.

Nevertheless, her voice in his mind — even as it was scolding him — was a welcome change from his own grim thoughts that only knew to circle around the question what he should do now that he had squandered his chance to quench his thirst for retribution. He did not have an answer, aside from the obvious: getting away from this mountain as soon as he could and hoping that Zeref would believe he was dead, just like the boy surely would think his lance had finished him. And maybe this, this would be the small bit of retribution granted to Silver — that the child would think himself guilty.

And then came the morning and a terrible, terrible cough shook him and, for a moment, he thought that he was dying. Forget the ice lance that had pierced his lungs mere hours prior, the lance that had pierced his chest too close to his heart for him not to feel fear for his own life — this felt like death. He was bent over, no, he was on his knees as he spat out blood and crimson-spotted flowers. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he caught his breath. And . . . he realised he could breathe.

**Freely** . 

Like he had not breathed in over a decade.

Suddenly, neither the boy nor Zeref mattered at all as he stared at the flowers in front of him, dread inching up his spine. His hands trembled as he reached for the blossoms, not caring about how the blood would make them all sticky and red. These flowers, he recognised from the orange trees that had lined the streets in his hometown, a place that was long lost to war and time. But what they were did not matter, did it? What mattered was that those were the last flowers that had been left in his lungs, the last flowers he would ever cough up.

Which could mean only one thing: he had done what he had sworn he would never do —  _ he had moved on _ .


End file.
